


Heart of Stone

by SereneSorrow



Series: Legends in Exile [3]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Demon Hunters, Demons, M/M, Time Travel, time travel comes later in the story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 14:53:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13503858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SereneSorrow/pseuds/SereneSorrow
Summary: Captain Cold leads The Rogues, a team of demon hunters in a desert world of walled cities that face off against the hive homes of the demon hordes. Taking a job to protect Star City from a huge new hive Captain Cold meets a young demon that can run faster than he can blink that makes him question whether demons can't be taught how to be human.





	Heart of Stone

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this first chapter back in September 2016, right after I watched the vampire movie Priest, which was the inspiration for the 'demon hives'. I have parts of chapter 2 and 3 written but I don't know when I'll be able to finish them because it took me all day to write this chapter and I don't have that kind of time anymore. I have also challenged myself to post SOMETHING every day (not of this story, of any of the stories I'm writing, there's been confusion on that) so when I do manage to finish these chapters they'll probably be shorter but I hope to keep them written in the same tone/voice and with the same skill/attention. :)

     The hive was massive, larger than any of the Rogues had ever seen. It looked like a colossal ant hill, grooves and holes riddled the sides nearest the top. It was made of dirt, sand and rock and glued together by some kind of natural secretion that the mindless worker demons produced. Somehow the demons had built it in the shadow of a mountain without the hunters that patrolled the wastelands noticing. The way the mountains curved back on themselves made it harder to observe from every angle, so it was understandable that small groups of hunters wouldn't want to circle around every twist and crevice. It would leave them too vulnerable to smaller packs of demons, and if they had been caught then they would have been unlikely to get word out to anyone, but now there were thousands of demons in there, and not fifty miles from Starling City.

     The call had gone out as soon as the hive had been discovered, they would need all the demon hunters they could get if they were going to destroy an entire hive, one that probably had a Demon King or Queen for it to be that size. Destroying it was the only option though, so close to a major human city there was no way to convince the entire population to relocate, and not everyone would have the resources to make the journey, especially the people who lived in the Glades. Even if they could all be moved though, there wouldn't be enough room for them all to make their homes even divided between every other city in the territory. The only options were to destroy the hive entirely or sacrifice hundreds to the demons, and giving demons more food was the last thing they needed.

     The Rogues had answered the call, they couldn't really afford not to. As a new hunter cell they needed to build their reputation, and earn enough to feed themselves, and a mass hunt like this didn't happen often. It was usually more impressive for a small cell to take out a normal sized hive then to team up with other cells, but with a hive this size this hunt would be a legend for a generation at least. Having their name attached to this hunt as one of their first would be impressive, a boost their credentials sorely needed and might even lead to another job.

     The Rogues were already on the road, doing smaller jobs between the cities when they had heard. They were technically based out of Central city, but they hadn't made a very clean break with their old cell, the one that the CCPD always called because it was lead by their own Lewis Snart. Leonard Snart had planned to form his own cell for years though. Ever since his father had pulled him along on jobs when he was just a kid, much too young to even be out there in the wastelands, fighting demons. Lewis always had a lesson to teach though, and he wanted his son to be the same kind of demon hunter he was, so he always found a job for Leonard that only someone small could do. Reaching into the holes of tooth fairy hives with his hands wasn't something a grown man could do, and even if he got enough bites through his gloves that the poison had kept him delirious for almost a week afterwards, he had still managed to stab every one of the tiny little demons with the iron dagger that was poison to them. It was still hell though, thinking that at any moment a demon would jump out of the dark at night when they made camp and would kill them all, it wasn't a fear that he wanted his little sister to ever know. He hadn't been able to prevent that though, everything the cell earned his father kept, as a minor he didn't even earn a share because no one could know he worked with his father. By the time he was old enough to officially join the cell his sister had already been killing the tooth fairies he could no longer reach for over a year.

     It hadn't taken long to win over the new generation of hunters from Central City, most of them anyway. As well as after they joined the cell they learned first hand how Lewis Snart ran things, and many of them would have died if Leonard hadn't opposed his father's plans more often than he agreed with them. Backing down enough to change his plans wasn't the same as letting Leonard call the shots though, and there was more to forming your own hunter cell than just quitting your old cell. It had taken time and planning, and Lewis had been furious to the point of making finding work very difficult for the Rogues, so much so that staying in Central City would have seen them bankrupt and crawling back to him just to put food on the table. Len took a good number of Lewis's new recruits though, his reputation had preceded him for the most part, some of them even said that he was the reason they had chosen this particular hunter cell. As a teenager Len had been dubbed 'Captain Cold' when he had used liquid nitrogen against a water demon, freezing the entire hive without ever entering it. The demon's powers had only spread the ice further into the hive, its power over water was a natural ability, not a magic that would have been able to affect the ice as well as water. The cell had been able to hand over the hive to the local authorities, and demonographers and scientists from any number of other fields had been ecstatic with the nearly perfectly preserved samples that they would be able to study. The hunters were given their bounty, with a generous bonus, and were able to move on while the CCPD were able to carve up the hive to manageable bits at the scientists direction, taking all the time they needed so long as they had enough liquid nitrogen to keep the hive frozen. It took days, and all the liquid nitrogen in the three nearest cities, but the hive was completely destroyed and six years later STAR Labs was still making discoveries out of the demon bits they had recovered intact.

     The largest hunter cell in Starling City, Team Arrow, was co-ordinating with the SCPD to plan their assault on the hive. Too many cells together could lead to misunderstandings when everyone had different plans of attack, the one way to get everyone on the same page was to let local law enforcement call the shots, even if they didn't know how to plan for once the hunters were inside the hive. Team Arrow was effective though, they worked well with the SCPD, and even managed to keep the hunters united despite a few rivalries that might have been a problem.

     The leader of Team Arrow was Oliver Queen, the heir to one of the wealthiest families in Starling City. He was also known as Green Arrow, since all of his gear was painted green, including the arrows he used almost exclusively. He met with the leaders of every cell and made sure that he knew every hunter's capabilities, even taking the Rogues seriously despite their having done only whatever small jobs they could find on the road the past few years.

     The plan Team Arrow had decided on, once they knew what they had to work with, was to send teams into the hive itself and clean it out from the inside before trying to destroy the structure itself. Explosives rarely took down the larger hives, the larger a hive was the more demons there were that could work the magic that humans still didn't understand, and that magic was nearly impenetrable to explosives. You had to get in and kill the demons casting the spells before the hive itself could fall, and drawing out a horde of demons made it more difficult to pinpoint which ones were using magic, as well as putting the lot of them on guard for just such targeting.

     The Rogues were among the teams sent to enter the hive, Mick's flamethrower and Hartley's sonic gloves being the deciding factor on that. They were starting the attack in the morning, to give themselves as much time as possible with the advantage against the majority of demons who were nocturnal, and had varying degrees of vulnerability to the sun. They had to climb up the side of the hive, just to get to the holes that served as entrances, which took hours even with the grapple lines that Team Arrow provided that cut the time in half if not more.

     When they reached the entrance that had been marked out as their point of entry Len ordered everyone to rest a moment while Hartley called in on the device that Team Arrow had given out to keep every team in contact as long as possible. They were all supposed to go in at the same time, and the Rogues would have to wait for three other teams to get in position. So far there hadn't been any sign of demon activity but sitting in the entrance to the hive wasn't Len's idea of a safe place to stop, the rest of the hunters had better be in position soon.

     They were. Still the lack of demon sightings so far was a surprise, and it was making Len nervous. They should have seen something by now, they were already so deep into the hive that sunlight was no longer lighting their path and even the lights they carried didn't reveal more than a few feet ahead of them. There must have been a darkening spell in effect to mute their lights so strongly. The path they were on branched off numerous times, but each new path was a hole drilled in above them, and they wouldn't be able to climb into those even with Team Arrow's equipment. It all made Len acutely aware that they could well be walking into a trap.

     Finally they could hear the shrieks of demons meeting their end echoing through the tunnels as they rounded a bend and encountered demons of their own. Axel and Roy's iron swords made quick work of the half dozen demons, all of them were weaker demons, barely humanoid and probably on the younger side, and only one of them had a heart strong enough to survive the destruction of the demon's own body. The heart that Axel cut out of the demon was a fragile piece of amber, and he smashed it easily. They couldn't afford to be carrying around a collection of demon hearts in a hive, it would draw attention from every demon nearby, and keeping the demon's power from being claimed by another demon was more important than bringing back trophies.

     All demons had stone where a human heart would be, the primitive demons that built the hives had hearts that were little more than clumps of dirt, and tooth fairy hearts were tiny pebbles that were barely noticeable and had to be carefully removed or else other tooth fairies would find them and grow stronger. A demon's power came from its stone heart, and the more hearts a demon had the more powerful it became, but most demons were kept from killing each other over hearts by arch-demons and the demon King or Queen who led a hive. Purists, the arch-demons had the greatest power that could come from only one heart and saw demons who needed more than one heart to match them in strength as contemptible. Though arch-demons still collected the hearts of their fallen enemies they horded them in a collection instead of absorbing them into their bodies. Only sparingly using the power they contained and only when it would not undermine their authority to do so. The hearts of arch-demons were difficult to break, if they could be destroyed at all, which is why the hunters always collected them whenever possible. Scientists were only just starting to study how they worked, but often a bounty on a strong demon would not be paid without turning in the heart as proof of the kill. There was more leeway on that when you were the 'official' hunter cell of a city, Len's father had managed to keep plenty of demon hearts after a hunt that he would always sell for his own profit. Diamonds and rubies the size of your fist fetched a high price even if they had been pulled out of a demon's chest. The more human a demon looked the stronger its heart was, and the more likely it was to have an ability like breathing fire or spitting poison.

     Axel stood and the Rogues continued onward. Just beyond the bodies they found a crossroads that they could actually take either path of. Still, sticking together was safer, and Len ordered the group to continue down the path that sloped deeper into the hive.

     The sounds of other teams killing demons continued to echo up through the tunnels and the deeper the Rogues went the louder it got, ricocheting around the tunnels like a system of pipes. They even encountered a few more demons themselves, but they were all still weaker ones who didn't seem to expect the Rogues to be there. Demon senses were stronger than a humans, so their surprise was confusing, and Len didn't like the way this was going. It was nothing he could put his finger on but something wasn't right about this. It could just be that this was the biggest hive any of them had encountered so far but that seemed like too easy an answer. There was something else.

     The something else turned out to be a trap. Every tunnel in the hive had ultimately led into a single core chamber at the center of the hive. Every hunter came out in the midst of a horde of demons, thousands crawling along the walls, and more unseen coming into the tunnels behind them. Mick lit up the flamethrower and Hartley's sonic gloves kept most of the demons nearest them incapacitated while they burned, but the other hunter cells around the room weren't doing as well with their traditional weapons. There were a few exceptions, the hunters from Suicide Squad appeared to be the least likely to die. Their leader Deathstroke and the woman who wore a mask to match his carved through the demons with easy efficiency and the Canary accompanying them used a series of small blades to bring down one demon after another. Even so, wading through the masses of demons it wasn't long before the hunters were being forced in separate directions, herded by the smarter demons who led the hive.

     “Mick! Stay with the others and get out of here!” Len shouted across the distance seperating them. Len kept firing but he was starting to run low on bullets and he and Lisa had been backed towards a smaller tunnel that led downward. Across, nearer to the center of the room the rest of the Rogues were still together, trying to cut a path to them. Mick had started burning the demons in their direction, obviously attempting to reach them himself, whether the others were able to follow him or not. “Join up with the other hunters! We'll never take down this hive this way, figure out a new plan!” Len gave this last order, not knowing if his team could even still hear him, just as he and Lisa were forced out of sight and down the tunnel.

     “Lenny what do we do?”

     “We're not getting away back the way we came, start running.” Len ordered, shoving her around to face the empty tunnel before them.

     “Are you sure this is the best idea Lenny? Can't we wait for the others to get to us?”

     “The Rogues are the the only ones who wouldn't write us off, we have to find our own way around Lis.”

     The tunnel twisted around and down, surprisingly so far there hadn't been any other tunnels branching off of this one. It made their eventual destination an ominous mystery, but it kept the demons behind them from overrunning them easily. Though it seemed that wasn't the demons plan, when suddenly a large grey demon crashed down into the ground below an opening in the tunnel. It was another humanoid demon, covered in large grey plate-like scales that almost seemed to shine. There wasn't enough light in the tunnels to be sure but if Len didn't know that demons were deathly allergic to iron he would have thought that the monster had metal scales.

     It growled at them and surged forward, it was slow with the weight of its own armor and they managed to duck around it, tripping it into the other demons behind them. Looking over his shoulder as they continued to run Len saw the scaled demon knocking aside their smaller pursuers with no regard for its fellow demons and hive-mates. The scaled one turned back to them just as they turned a bend in the tunnel and lost sight of it.

     There was a roar behind them as the demon came after them, slower because of its size and weight but keeping up with them regardless. It was certainly lacking in intelligence, they managed to stay out of it's range with faints and by splitting its attention between them so that it couldn't catch either of them. Their taunting was making it more and more angry though and suddenly the demon rushed them blindly, not bothering to stop as they ducked out of the way and it careened into the tunnel wall. A rough edge must have caught the demon's shoulder because even as the wall crumbled under the force of the blow the demon tumbled back, stumbling farther along the tunnel they were already standing in though the crumbled wall revealed another tunnel just on the other side of what seemed to be a thin wall.

     “Why would they build parallel tunnels?” Lisa asked as Len pulled her into the opening over the debris.

     “Well the one we were in was in theory a fairly good trap for infiltrators like us. The side tunnel must be their access to the trap.” Len posited.

     Two turns later the hunters both froze. They could hear the metal skinned demon thundering through the tunnel behind them but that seemed far less important when they were faced with a huge cavern full of glowing orbs of all sizes. They were clumped along rocks, along raised edges and even climbed the walls and hung dripping from the ceiling.

     “Eggs.” Len said unnecessarily. This was a very bad place to be without backup. Any number of demons could be tending to the nursery, hidden among all those differently glowing and pulsing orbs there was little way they could distinguish a demon creeping up on them.

     They didn't really have a choice though. The siblings raced strait into the nursery as the enraged demon behind them barged into the room carelessly, breaking open egg after egg. At least the beast was doing their work for them. The screech of another demon from somewhere overhead made them duck for cover but the winged monstrosity launched itself at the other demon and the two tumbled deeper into the nests of eggs as they fought.

     “Come on!” Len pushed his sister onward as more demons, some of which they were sure they'd never seen the like of before, streamed in to join the fight behind them seeming not to care about the humans darting past them.

     Before long they came to a wall lined with arched passages that led to an intersection that split off in nine directions, including two in the roof above and one below in the center of the ground. There was no way to tell where any of the tunnels went, but the more distance between them and the metal skinned demon the better, neither their guns nor their swords would be able to kill a demon immune to iron. Even if that particular demon was killed by it's own that would leave dozens of still furious demons to suddenly remember the two humans that had just passed by. They moved around the hole warily, and chose the tunnel that pointed the most directly away from the nursery.

     “How much farther down did they build? Haven't we reached ground level yet?” Lisa asked as they moved on.

     Len started counting as they ran. They only had so long before the rest of the hunter teams cleared enough of the hive to start planting explosives, or had to fall back as they were overwhelmed depending on how things went.

     “Are we even still in the hive? We've been walking forever!” Lisa complained as they kept going. They hadn't seen another demon since they'd left the nursery and the sense of urgency had all but vanished. They had stopped running long ago and Len was concerned about what else could go wrong here.

     “Forty-three minutes in an almost strait line, we've walked more than the width of the hive, and we started nearer an edge than the center of it. This tunnel shouldn't even be here, demons build above ground as much as humans do. Hives don't have tunnels to the outside like this.” Len explained with a frown. He didn't like it when demons did things contrary to their patterns, it always resulted in a mission gone horribly wrong.

     “The hive already had one trap, how do we know what's at the end of this isn't another trap?” Lisa asked her brother as she fingered her weapons.

     “It probably is, but we can't go back now. The demons that were chasing us will be waiting back the way we came.”

     “You mean we're about to die and there's nothing we can do about it? Were you planning to mention that Len?” Lisa yelled.

     “Go ahead and let them know how far we are from the trap Lis. It's not like we can't find a way to kill whatever demon is waiting for us.” Len froze suddenly and Lisa followed his gaze to the end of the tunnel. The actual end of the tunnel were there was only a narrow fissure continuing on, the same magical glow from the nursery filtering out towards them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The eggs and the winged demon are inspired by the 2014 Godzilla movie.


End file.
